Symbols Key

 Parking  Picnic Site  Fishing Bus stop   Information Centre  Walks/Trails  Theme/ Pleasure Park Train station  Visitor Centre  Cycle Trail  Cathedral/ Abbey Stile PC Public Convenience  Horse Riding  Museum Viewpoint  Forestry Commission  Public House  Castle/ Fort Gate  Public Telephone  Viewpoint  Building of Historic Interest Hazards/ Take care Camp Site Country Park English Heritage    © Crown Copyright and database right 2011. Ordnance Survey 100019238  Caravan Site  Garden  National Trust  Camp/Caravan Site  Nature Reserve  Other Tourist Feature  Leisure Centre  Water Activities HighHigh Weald Weald Landscape Trail Trail  Golf Course  Slipway 4 Interesting feature

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08458 247 600 (Mon - Fri: 8am - 8pm)  Chapter 3: to , 3.1

Man’s Mark on the Landscape this one. The close-mown sward 56. Longitude 59. Electricity in transit can be a “green desert”, but watch As you leave East Grinstead you Are the steel pylons marching The old railway line to Tunbridge for green woodpeckers probing for cross from the western to the with a certain grace across your Wells, closed in 1967 and now the ants, and blackbirds searching for eastern hemisphere. The Town path carrying the huge voltages Country Park, leads you worms and insects. Council’s Meridian Hall, north of the of the National Grid or merely the out of busy East Grinstead into High Street, is named for its position local supply? Local power flows a quiet and pastoral landscape. 53. A rural idyll? near the Greenwich Meridian. through single cables slung from Beyond , the farms and The Spinney, Fieldways, Hazeldene the porcelain insulators, while sets woodlands of this gently undulating ... the names of the suburban houses 57. Forest Way Country Park of two or four wires mean that area are probably as empty of tell of their owners’ hopes. The ex-railway makes pleasant power at 275,000 or 400,000 volts is people as they have been since the walking, especially on a summer’s passing overhead. days of early settlement. 54. East Grinstead day. Sunlight filters through the Originally just a “green place in the trees grown up on either side now 50. Standen woodland”, by medieval times this that there is no danger of fire from 51. Saint Hill Manor was a bustling market town. the spark of a passing locomotive. The two historic houses come Wild roses, stinging nettles and into view at almost the same time. Stand under the plane trees in comfrey of many hues flourish in The grandiose facade of the 18th front of Sackville College, a set of the sunny spots; feathery grasses century Manor contrasts with almshouses where the inhabitants and purple spires of foxgloves in the the more domestic gables and lived a collegiate or community dappled shade. chimneys of the 1890s Standen. life, and look back at the roofs and The Maharajah of Jaipur and L Ron facades of the High Street and you 58. Exile and ruin Hubbard’s Church of Scientology are might be about to enter a 16th Steps up on to the embankment associated with the grandeur, Philip century marketplace. Town trail lead to a view of the ruins of moated Webb and William Morris of the Arts guides are available from the TIC in Brambletye Manor. It fell into decay and Crafts Movement with the more the Library. after 1683 when owner Sir James comfortable approach. The National Richard, out hunting in Ashdown Trust now owns Standen. 55. Local families Forest, was warned he was about How often do you see the names to be apprehended for treason. He 52. Wildlife at play Sackville and Dorset? You will find spurred his horse for the coast and The edges of recreation grounds and evidence of the patronage of the fled to the court of Spain. playing fields are often full of wildlife Sackville family, Earls of Dorset, - the rabbits certainly come out from throughout this section. Cantelupe the bushes to feed on the grass of Road reflects another family title. 54 56

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Kilometres 0.5 1 High Weald Landscape Trail Also use Ordnance Survey Map: Explorer 135 0 Section 3, Map 1, East Grinstead to Groombridge ± 4 Miles 0.25 0.5 Interesting feature www.kent.gov.uk/explorekent 3.2

60. Biodynamic farming 63. Game farming from Lewes to London. You can see The small red cattle are The wide ride through Paupersdale Gallypot Street where the line runs one of the keys to the fertility of Wood is a good place for butterflies die-straight to the south. Why did Tablehurst Organic Farm. Their on a sunny day. The butterflies take the English wander from point to manure, along with that of the herd nectar from flowers or moisture from point where the Romans marched so of milking sheep and of the pigs and damp ground. The woods here are precisely? chickens, is returned to the land to used for rearing pheasants; you may grow biodynamically-certified crops. see the grainhoppers and maggot 68. Clusters of old lorry bodies are dispensers the birds feed from after No castle now in Castlefields, but an shelters for the five different breeds they are released from the breeding attractive village, largely of white of pig reared on the Farm. pens. weatherboard buildings, and a flower-filled memorial garden. The 61. A sunken lane 64. Sticky boots “hart’”from its Forest beginnings How many centuries has it taken Names on the map tell of clay and features on various signs, and cartwheels and plodding feet to marl pits. Marl, a limy clay, was there is the inevitable “Pooh wear the earth away? Concrete spread on fields to improve soil Corner’”amongst the shops (AA tracks slow the erosion now. texture. Milne wrote his famous bear stories Badgers, foxes and rabbits take in Hartfield). advantage of the well drained soil in 65. Diversification such cuttings. Droppings, footprints, A tea garden for walkers (fine days 69. An elegant spire or hairs caught on roots will give only!) and a camping site, beside The churchyard is as attractive as you a clue as to who lives where. what is probably a flooded clay pit, the elegant spire that has beckoned Sometimes you may catch the are typical developments in today’s you on from afar. If you rest on the musky smell of a fox or see a heap of countryside. seat under the spreading tulip tree, dried grass bedding discarded by a ponder on the unhappy fate of so house-proud badger. 66. Two storeyed stiles many of the Maryan family. Was it These unusual stiles suggest the poverty, genetic defect or just the 62. Got your mobile? field beyond the St Ives Lane has usual statistics of a harsh era? Wireless communication means been used for deer farming. transmission towers on high ground. You will see one bristling with aerials 67. Roman road on the right as you pass Blackberry You will need to map read carefully Cottage. to work out just when you are crossing the line of the Roman road 63 64 65 66 62 67

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Kilometres 0.5 1 High Weald Landscape Trail Also use Ordnance Survey Map: Explorer 135 0 Section 3, Map 2, East Grinstead to Groombridge ± 4 Miles 0.25 0.5 Interesting feature www.kent.gov.uk/explorekent 3.3

70. sticky and water-resistant clay you Story has it that the Monk’s House have just walked through. and the Rectory were once joined by a covered passage. This explains Silvery- grey soils underfoot prepare the strange chamfered corner of the you for the sandstone outcrops half- former. Recent extensions to the hidden in the trees. house have been done with locally produced hand-made bricks. 73. An unusual use of bricks Old Groombridge lies to the north, The four-square tower of St Michael near the Jacobean Groombridge and All Angels Church contrasts with Place. The timbered and tiled Hartfield’s slender spire. Within are houses around the triangular green decorated ceilings and a wealth of tone well with the 1625 “Gothic’” monuments to the Sackville family. brick church. It is uncommon to find The summer scent of the lime tree brick used for such an important enlivens the churchyard. building.

71. Buckhurst Park You will get no more than a glimpse of the house on the site of the original Sackville home. Revel instead in the parkland scenery. What beautiful shapes trees grown in open ground achieve! The covered “well” as you enter the Park is actually a chalybeate (iron- containing) spring; the iron leaving an orange deposit as it flows.

72. The springline Iron-rich water seeps from the ground in Legg Wood too, quickly cutting a gill for itself. The springs here rise where sandy soils meet the 73

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Kilometres 0.5 1 High Weald Landscape Trail Also use Ordnance Survey Map: Explorer 135 0 Section 3, Map 3, East Grinstead to Groombridge ± 4 Miles 0.25 0.5 Interesting feature www.kent.gov.uk/explorekent